Richard Swan's Blog

The Knackerman is the bane of necromancers. He waits in Limbo to trap adventuring souls - and the Great Silence has provided much spiritual fodder to keep him busy...

GRAVE EMPIRE character art by the wonderfully talented Hannah Elizabeth

Greetings readers of all things Swan, and Merry Christmas! We are standing on the precipice of that bizarre, liminal, unconstructed space between Christmas and New Year where time loses all meaning. So, a quick end of year newsletter before we lose all sense of ourselves.

Let's get into it, shall we?

Grave Empire

My next release is of course Grave Empire, the first book in the Great Silence trilogy. This is my next big tentpole fantasies series, a stand-alone work set two hundred years after the events of the Empire of the Wolf. This is currently on track to be released on 4 February 2025.

For those of you who follow me on social media, you will have seen the Goldsboro exclusive special edition.

These are all going to be signed and numbered, and have extremely cool sprayed edges. Numbers are limited to 750, so act quickly to pre-order.

Also revealed yesterday was the gorgeous Broken Binding special edition!

This has custom board art and edges by Jeff Brown and endpaper art by Peng Lu. Details for the sale of this can be found in the Tweet above.  Look at this!!

If you would like to meet me in person and get a signed (regular) hardback copy of Grave Empire, I will be appearing at Waterstones Covent Garden alongside other fantasy luminaries-- Adrian Tchaikovsky, Anna Smith Spark, and Mike Brooks.

This is a ticketed event taking place on 6 February 2025; hope to see some of you there!

I also plan on being at Worldcon Seattle and Fantasycon in Brighton in 2025, and likely more conventions too, now that I'm back in the UK.

Grave Empire Artwork

One of my favourite things to do is take some of my hard earned money and pump it back into the creative ecosystem, and 2024 has been no different. Most recently I've been having a blast commissioning Hannah Elizabeth to do me some political cartoons ahead of the release of Grave Empire:

But I also have to give this incredible piece by Hannah Charlton from the Justice of Kings a second airing:

The Scour

Also coming out next year is The Scour (slated for October 2025) from Grimdark Magazine. This is a prequel novella set fifteen years before the events of The Justice of Kings, featuring (inter alios) Vonvalt and Bressinger. I saw what Adrian did with Anna Smith Spark and Michael Fletcher’s In the Shadow of their Dying (in fact I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy of it) and I think GDM are going to be huge in the novella space in the coming years. This is a really exciting project and I’m really pleased to be returning to the character of Vonvalt for a good old-fashioned fantasy police procedural.

You can pre-order The Scour on Amazon here.

Interviews

As usual I've managed to squeeze a few in this year including with one of my favourite modern fantasy authors Fonda Lee.

2026

Looking further afield, 2026 will be a busy year for Swan fans. As well as the second novel in the Great Silence trilogy (currently untitled, but the first draft is written) which is slated for a February release, I also have two other books coming out. The first of these is an unannounced Warhammer 40,000 novel from Black Library (I can’t give any details on this yet, save that I have written the first draft of this as well), which as a lifelong Warhammer player is something of a bucket list item for me. The other is an also unannounced dystopian science-fiction novel which I am tremendously excited about. In fact, this may be the most excited about a book I’ve written I think I’ve ever been. This one has sold to 2 major transatlantic publishers (not Orbit, who publish my fantasy) and it’s going to be huuuge, I feel it in my bones. So lots to look forward to!

The Numbers

I wrote 300,000 words this year, on the following:

150,000 on book 2 of the Great Silence (untitled)

82,000 on an unannounced Warhammer 40,000 novel

50,000 words on an unfinished, shelved sequel to the Trials of Empire following Sir Radomir (I don’t have the time to finish or revisit this anymore)

16,000 words and counting on The Scour (the Empire of the Wolf novella)

Which is a pretty good showing for me. I also edited a bunch of stuff but that’s much messier and harder to quantify.

The Richard Swan annual book award (or whatever I called it last time)

Honestly it’s just Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff. It’s incredible. I can’t remember the last time I was so utterly absorbed by a fantasy novel (or any kind of novel, really, especially such a long one).

Fin

Phew. And that's it! Once again, merry Christmas to those who celebrate and a Happy New Year to everyone whether you celebrate it or not. I'll see you on the other side.

Best

Rich

Friends, countrymen!

Very pleased and excited to share that I'll be appearing at Waterstones Covent Garden on the evening of the 6th February 2025, alongside such genre luminaries as Anna Smith Spark, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Mike Brooks. It'll be an evening of fun conversation and a chance to grab a signed hardcover from me at the end. You can buy tickets here:

https://www.waterstones.com/events/warlords-kings-and-warriors-anna-smith-spark-adrian-tchaikovsky-mike-brooks-and-richard-swan-in-conversation/london-covent-garden

Hope to see you there!

Greetings, friends - much has been happening behind the scenes for GRAVE EMPIRE. We are still on for publication week commencing 3 February 2025. With the book hitting the shelves (hardback in the UK, straight to trade paperback in the USA) in a mere 3 months, it's time for an update.

Netgalley

The novel is currently live on both Netgalley UK and USA, so if you have an account and a book review platform, make sure you request a copy!

(Click the flag - or don't, I'm not the boss of you)

Goodreads

For readers based in the States, Orbit USA are running a Goodreads giveaway. There are 100 ebook copies up for grabs and the competition is open until 2 December.

(You can use this widget to add the book to your Goodreads account)

Reviews

Always the most nerve-shredding part of writing is waiting to see how the book will be received, so it's always a relief to get some early good press from trade reviewers. I'm thrilled to report that Grave Empire has received an early starred review in Publishers Weekly:

Swan launches the Great Silence trilogy, set 200 years after the Empire of the Wolf series, with this dazzling and immersive epic fantasy. After Peter Kleist’s father buys him a Sovan Army commission, the callow officer confronts more than he bargained for at the so-called “fort at the end of the world,” located near the Sovan Empire’s front with its enemies, Casimir and Sanque. In addition to those adversaries, the Sovans stationed there are at risk from some possibly supernatural creatures, responsible for the grisly massacre of several soldiers. As Kleist struggles to survive, Sovan diplomat Renata Rainer joins an expedition investigating an unsettling claim made by two monks from a sect that regularly converses with the dead. They claim that the spirits have gone quiet, which may herald the Great Silence, a prophesied apocalyptic event. The pages fly as Swan alternates between the two plotlines, building the stakes of each sky-high. The worldbuilding is lush, enhanced by Swan’s rich descriptive prose, and the characters are complex. Readers won’t need to be familiar with the earlier series to be drawn in—and this promising start will leave them eager for more. (Feb.)

As well as a glowing write up in Grimdark Magazine:

Absolutely crammed with imagination, horror, epic scale, and characters I simply could not put down. I’m calling it now: Grave Empire is going to be one of the best dark fantasies 2025 has to offer.

Advanced Reader Copies

As well as Netgalley there will be physical ARCs going out in the coming weeks to transatlantic reviewers, so keep an eye on your post boxes.

Special Edition(s)

Bookplates

I am in the process of having new flintlock-era SOVA heraldic bookplates made for the GREAT SILENCE trilogy. In the meantime, check out the medieval-era bookplates I have for the Empire of the Wolf trilogy.

And finally...

Not a GRAVE EMPIRE update but rather a Sir Konrad Vonvalt update! For fans of the Empire of the Wolf series, some exciting news: I'm partnering with Grimdark Magazine to produce a Vonvalt / Bressinger (and some other familiar faces) novella, in all formats, set 15 years before the Justice of Kings. For the full announcement, click the pic below:

That's probably enough from me for now.

Cheers

Rich

Thrilled to share this incredible piece I commissioned from the talented Hannah Charlton; an illuminated manuscript page (on real parchment!) depicting the arrival of Margrave Westenholtz at Galen's Vale. Readers of The Justice of Kings will recognise this infamous scene ⚔️

You can find more of Hannah's art here.

For those of you who have read my Art of War space operas (or plan to), good news! You can get a free short story, ATOMICS ANONYMOUS, when you sign up for Grimdark Magazine's mailing list. Simply navigate to https://www.grimdarkmagazine.com/ and sign up using the box that looks like this:

ATOMICS ANONYMOUS is the first thing I've written in the Art of War universe for about 6 years, and it was a lot of fun to return to it. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it!

Rich

For those of the Barnes & Noble persuasion, they are currently running a 25% off preorders promotion for Premium and Rewards members until 17 July. This includes my next novel, GRAVE EMPIRE, out in February 2025, and the trade paperback edition of THE TRIALS OF EMPIRE (Empire of the Wolf 3), which releases in August 2024. Links:

Grave Empire

The Trials of Empire

Preorders help authors tremendously so if you're planning on buying either of these books anyway then now would be a great time.

In other news, keep an eye out for a new Trials of Empire art commission in the coming weeks!

That's all for now!

Rich